The need to restrain the burgeoning power of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel grows ever more urgent. The latest flashpoint is public transportation.

…We fear that this continued diminishment of women’s rights will open up a dangerous wedge in the already fraught relationship between American Jews and Israel.

…Supporters of Israel must strongly protest Katz’s acquiescence to the segregationists. The right of Haredi men and women to live and worship as they please must be protected, of course. But Israel’s public sphere must be open to all. In a 21st-century democracy, no one should be relegated to the back of the bus.

“The minister is trying to push a round peg through a square hole,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, director of Hiddush, a non-profit organization aimed at promoting religious freedom in Israel.

“What he’s saying is that the state won’t pass a law making the arrangement legal, but also wouldn’t do anything to stop it.”

“It’s not clear on what authority he rejected the committee’s determination that the separation involves violence and coercion against women.

How could such an arrangement be voluntary? How could verbal violence and pressure against a woman who boards the bus be prevented?” asked attorney Einat Hurvitz, who represented the plaintiffs in court.

"The Minister's stance also ignores the need to ensure a fitting alternative to anyone who wishes to travel in bus lines without segregation, and does not address at all the significant difference in prices that makes the Mehadrin bus lines much cheaper than what is offered to the secular public."

Jerusalem city council member Rachel Azaria added, "The recommendation is purely political, and was written because Shasand Agudat Israel are strong in the government.

"A woman should not be forced to sit in the back of these lines because of the number of seats Shas has. Minister Katz has betrayed his constituents.

He is betraying the secular, traditional, religious, and even most of the haredi public – for the sake of haredi extremists. As a public representative he should remember that this is the public that is meant to vote for him when the time comes."

The Western Wall should be a national site and not a synagogue, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said on Tuesday, in a revealing conversation in Tel Aviv about matters of religion and state with rabbis and leaders of the American and Israeli Conservative Movement.

Top American Conservative and Reform officials met this week with Meridor as well as with a number of other government ministers in separate and – according to the Reform Movement – uncoordinated meetings.

“The truth is that there is no equality between religious streams in Israel,” Meridor said. “There is no free market.

“What happened at the Western Wall bothers me. It doesn’t have to be a synagogue. It is a national site. I would change the status quo if I could, but it cannot be done with the current coalition.”

Regarding civil marriage, Meridor said it was “unacceptable” that Israeli couples who are unable or unwilling to marry in Israel via the rabbinate are forced to wed abroad.

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, who has recentlyangered the Defense Ministerby promoting insubordination in the army, has come out with a new statement saying the Israel Defense Forces chief rabbi does not have the power to make halachic rulings binding to soldiers.

Speaking at a convention dubbed "The obligation of obeying a command and its limits", held Tuesday at Efrat’s Shvut Israel hesder yeshiva, Melamed said military rabbis were swayed by wrongful considerations as well as army officers, and that this weakens the IDF rabbinate.

The IDF is offering a new service track for young religious women in the hope of attracting more of them to serve in the military.

The track will enable them to serve in groups of six or more girls who will remain together throughout their military service. The new option was presented this week before a group of 500 religious girls who are candidates for enlistment.

A Michigan company that supplies gun sights to Israel and other companies has agreed to provide a kit to remove the “JN8:12” code, a reference to the New Testament passage of John 8:12 that Jesus is the “light of the world.” Another type of the company’s gun sights is stamped with “2COR4:6,” a reference to part of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians.

Secular Judaism "brought us Haskalah and maybe 'Big Brother,' but Jewish culture that provides a new Jewish language - this it did not bring," former Shas leader Aryeh Deri said on Tuesday at the annual Herzliya Conference.

Deri said that more haredim were quietly entering the work force, the IDF and universities. He joked that the secular would one day complain that haredim were taking over academia.

In thinly veiled criticism of Shas, he said he generally opposed religious coercion in legislation. But he praised Labor MK Shelly Yacimovich’s effort to promote greater enforcement of legislation banning work on Shabbat, which he said was important to prevent the exploitation of weaker sectors.

Rav Ovadia Yosef has issued a trail-blazing if not original psak permitting a woman to recite Kaddish over her parents in a minyan at home. The psak is likely to arouse the chareidi rabbinical establishment against him.

Ongoing external threats have diverted us from confronting the burgeoning haredi crisis which is rapidly developing into a national disaster.

…We are now rapidly reaching the point in which able-bodied Haredim unwilling or unfit to join the workforce will comprise such a large proportion of society that the state welfare system will simply become unable to support them.

The other explosive issue is Haredi exemption from army service, which has no religious justification and continues generating enormous resentment.

…Another issue is the inclination of certain haredi rabbis to more stringently interpret the applications of Jewish ritual observance.

..in view of the explosive impending economic and political implications of the growing haredi population on the workforce and the IDF, haredim must be integrated into the mainstream and obliged to work and serve in the army or participate in national service.

A body of a woman snatched by a group of ultra-Orthodox men on Wednesday evening has been returned to the Jerusalem Police.

…"ZAKA commander in Jerusalem Bentzi Oring arrived to handle the body, but was also beaten and pushed by those violent people, although these actions contradict the Halacha and respect of the dead," ZAKA spokesman Moti Bukjin told Ynet.

ZAKA officials said that Oring used his connections with the police and among extreme elements in the haredi sector in order to reach an arrangement with the body snatchers.

Are Israel's Haredi religious authorities losing control of their followers?

In December, leading Israeli rabbis launched a new push to curtail Internet use among ultra-Orthodox Jews, emphasizing that their longstanding ban on Web surfing applied to sites geared toward the Haredi community as well.

Israel would be among the world's richest nations if Arabs and ultra-orthodox Jews could be brought into the economy, Israel's top treasury official said on Wednesday.

"If two groups of people were left out of GDP calculations, Israel would rank among the foremost developed countries," Ministry of Finance Director General Haim Shani said. "They are the Arabs and the Haredis."

The Israel Beiteinu minister met with Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas) and other deputy ministers and committee chairs from haredi parties, to hear from them their constituency’s tourism needs.

The aim of the brainstorming session was to examine the characteristics of foreign and domestic haredi tourists, identify the difficulties facing them and zero in on obstacles to maximizing the sector’s potential.

Meseznikov also announced a NIS 30 million plan to upgrade infrastructure at Mount Meron that will be presented to the cabinet in the coming weeks. The tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai on Mount Meron is the most-visited Jewish holy site after the Western Wall, with hundreds of thousands converging on it on Lag Ba’omer.

“It’s a quiet revolution in the heart of the ultra-Orthodox community of Har Nof, as well as in broader Jerusalem and beyond,” says Shira Barzily, the young, energetic outreach manager of the conservatory, as she leads me into Har Nof’s Beit Ya’acov elementary school, where the conservatory exists after regular school hours.

There, some 500 female students, ranging in age from seven through adulthood, immerse themselves in the world of classical music.

Yossi Dotan, vice president of long-term savings at the Harel Group, and Motti Levy, vice president of Harel Gilad, received blessings from Maran HaRav Eliashivshlitafor an investment track in the Harel Gilad pension fund which has been granted halachic approval by the Eida Chareidis' Oversight Committee for Financial Investments.

Of the 25 teacher training colleges in the country, the one which scored the highest marks was Herzog College in Gush Etzion, which readies students to teach at state-run religious Jewish schools. On average, such colleges had higher admissions rates than those geared toward non-religious schools.

Israel’s High Court of Justice has […] ordered the return of two children, members of the Chabad community, to their non-Jewish father. In this case, the Hadera Family Court and the Haifa District Court which heard the appeal felt there would be “no significant harm” to the children by sending them to France, to live with the non-Jewish biological father. The High Court did not overrule the decision of the lower courts.

A number of Breslav Hassidim entered unauthorized into Joseph's Tomb and fled the area. They then broke through an IDF checkpoint in the area, and the soldiers fired warning shots in the area following the incident.

The condition of former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu worsened considerably overnight Saturday. Sources told Arutz 7 that he was currently being aided in his breathing by a respirator and in critical condition in the emergency ward of Shaare Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem. Doctors are working to stabilize his condition.

Will Netanyahu use a court decision to forgo a plan to alter the Mughrabi Gate?

The Western Wall Rabbi, Shmuel Rabinowitz, is a man of action: He never for a moment hid his intention of exploiting the repair of the ramp to turn the unused space below it into an extension of the women's prayer section.

He would joke that the Lord had answered his prayers by putting cracks in the ramp, which would make it possible to reduce the crowding at the Western Wall Plaza. The rabbi also used his connections in earthly Jerusalem - namely, in the office of then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Snow flurries drifted to the ground on Mount Gerizim overlooking Nablus on Thursday, as mourners gathered to bury the spiritual leader of the Samaritans, who passed away the previous day.

High Priest Elazar ben Tsadaka ben Yitzhaq was born during a snowstorm 83 years ago, one mourner said. On Thursday, as he was being laid to rest at the holiest site in the Samaritan religion, the snow began to fall again.

The Attorney General's Office filed its High Court rebuttal on the matter ofconversion annulmentMonday, stating that the rabbinical courts' decision to retroactively annul conversions should be made null and void.

The State alleges that "fundamental faults" can be found in the regional rabbinical courts' ruling, as well as in the Great Rabbinical Court's decision to deny several appeals on the conversions' annulment.

The State's brief named lack of due process as one of the main reasons the decision must be overturned.

Chief Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar signed over the weekend new measures stipulating that rabbinical courts will no longer deliberate misgivings regarding the validity of conversions, and instead will transfer such files to a special panel chosen by the rabbi himself, Ynet learned.

As part of his role as chief rabbi, Rabbi Amar serves as president of the Great Rabbinical Court and as the supreme rabbinical authority on the State conversion layout.

The new measures are the fruit of a joint initiative between the rabbi and the Justice Ministry in preparation for the High Court hearing on the petition against rabbinical judge Avraham Sherman's conversion nullifications.

In Tel Aviv, where she works, Alina Serjukov is Jewish. In Ashkelon, where she lives, she’s considered a gentile.

Alina discovered her strange predicament in the run-up to her January 14 wedding, when she and her husband attempted to register their upcoming marriage with the local rabbinate.

But the official rabbi in Ashkelon refused to accept that she is Jewish, even though a regional rabbinic court, part of a network of such courts headed by Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, had written to confirm that she had a valid conversion to Judaism and should be considered Jewish.

Her husband, Maxim Serjukov, called the situation “ridiculous.”

“My wife is Jewish in every place except for in Ashkelon — in the army, in the Chief Rabbinate and in the rest of Israel, just not in Ashkelon,” he told the Forward.

It is strange to think that a democratic, westernized country in the twenty-first century lacks civil marriage and coerces the secular majority to comply with religious traditions. Although Israel is a Jewish state, it is not a religious state.

The Ministerial Committee on Legislation decided yesterday to postpone discussion for two weeks on a controversial bill to expand the rabbinical courts' power to handle civil cases.

The postponement stemmed from disagreements among the coalition's various factions, according to sources involved in the committee's work. Specifically, ministers from both Labor and Yisrael Beiteinu said they would not support the bill.

Calls by MK Moshe Gafni (Yahadut HaTorah) to expand the authority of the nation’s rabbinical courts have resulted in sharp criticism from many who oppose the move, including the Rackman Center – The Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women’s Status, affiliated with Bar Ilan University’s Faculty of Law.

The center’s leaders fear that such a move would lead to “further trampling the rights of women” in the rabbinical courts, and therefore, such a move must be avoided.

Lapid is marketing himself as a representative of the authentic Israeli: He respects the Bible and combat soldiers, opposes religious coercion and loves Hebrew songs.

He appeals to the nonreligious who pretend they want change but are really clinging to the Israel of old, before Shas appeared on the scene.

…Mani Mazuz's intentions are not clear, but like Lapid, he talks like a political wannabe. In an interview with Ari Shavit, the former attorney general surprised us with a call for same-sex marriages in Israel - which puts him squarely on Lapid's side, "the secular rabbi," and against the religious parties.

We have so very much in which we can take pride here in Israel. But one dark spot is our failure to actualize the message of Pesach.

As observant Jews, we in the Masorti Movement see the ethical commandments as no less important than the ritual Mitzvot.

…I call upon the political parties in the Knesset to address the so-called "Matzah law." I too would like to see Hametz removed from the stores on Pesach. But I want this done not by the enactment of still more legislation forcing observance. I want this to come through education.

Once a month, nearly 200 lone soldiers eat Friday night dinner at the Great Synagogue.

Schapiro is at pains to point out that, “Although we are a traditional synagogue run in accordance with Halacha, we ask no questions of the soldiers. They come, and we provide. There is no coercion, no attempt to impress any particular approach – we absolutely respect our guests.”

Yair Sheleg is a Senior Researcher at IDI and a regular Op-Ed contributor to the Israeli daily Haaretz.

It would be advisable to try to reach as broad an agreement as possible on as many issues as possible - a social treaty of sorts in which reciprocal concessions would be made simultaneously, enabling each side to accept more readily the possibility of compromise.

A sector that is still prepared to make concessions of this kind should not be allowed to capitulate to hardliners who object to any and all accommodations.

The willing parties must shape their own agreements and enact them in binding form, acting on the assumption that although the ideological extremes will disagree and cast aspersions, nonetheless - in their heart of hearts - many of them will be glad that someone has come along to take the chestnuts out of the fire.

In Israel, however, the vast majority of Jews have rejected the notion of separation of state and religion.

As a Jewish state, we have chosen that the Jewish religion should have a dominant role and place within the culture, language, and policy of the State.

When we came home to Israel we came to a place where we did not need the separation of state and religion in order to grant us legitimacy and basic rights.

…the fact that we haven’t developed a way to balance our desire that Judaism be a part of the public life and domain, and at the same time enable religious difference, is an oht kayin(the Mark of Cain - a stigma or disgrace).

That which was so essential in defining Israel as a Jewish home is now itself undermining the sense of home.

While haredi protests over the Shabbat operation of Jerusalem’s Karta parking lot and Intel factory have ebbed, a new front in the so-called “Shabbat wars” may be opening up, and this time it appears to be coming from the capital’s secular residents.

An online petition launched last Friday calls on Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to open the Jerusalem Theater – a long-cherished municipal establishment – on the Jewish day of rest, and in five short days, it has already garnered more than 3,400 signatures.

According to Edelstein, the frustration of the Jewish community over rights of Conservative and Reform Jews in Israel has created a potential disconnect between the community and Israel and could dampen relations in the long run.

One of the topics that arose in New York, Philadelphia and Washington was the topic of the recent events in Israel, Jewish pluralism, if you will, including Women at the Wall and the buses (the segregated buses for the fervently Orthodox) and other topics.

The Israeli minister also said that as far as he was concerted the issue didn't end with recognizing of the Reform and Conservative movements, adding that "an official recognition, some signed document, isn't going to automatically make problems like those that arose with "Women of the Wall" go away. There are issues to be dealt with beyond this or that legislation."

The Jewish Agency had planned to hold their February Board of Governors Meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia. Apparently the Russian government was not in agreement. Here’s the letter that just went out to those attending.

Jewish oligarchs, most of whom had refused up till now to work with the Jewish Agency, are expected to take part for the first time in a public event identifying with Israel, Zionism and aliyah.

This will take place in three weeks in St. Petersburg. The person who succeeded in bringing the oligarchs together with the divided Jewish community of Russia and the Ukraine was the Chairman of the Jewish Agency Natan Sharansky.

This is mostly political – the global kind. It’s about philanthropist and Jewish Agency Board member Leonid Nevzlin and the fact the Russian government considers him a fugitive. It’s about Sharansky, quite properly, not being able to assure the powers that be in Russia thatKhodorkovsky’s imprisonment would not be discussed in the public dialogue.

But this is also a serious management failure by the Jewish Agency. It is clear they did not obtain the necessary permissions for this meeting. Whether through bungling,chutzpah,internal politics or just plain ego they announced this historic event without all their ducks in order.

The widespread controversy following Shas’ decision to join the World Zionist Organization reflects the astonishment at efforts tolegitimize cooperation of the chareidi community with the secular nationalist establishment.

The underlying worldview of chareidi Jews is that there can be no coming to terms with heresy. The shock with which the recent move of Shas was received points to the trepidation truly G-d-fearing Jews feel toward any undermining of the foundations of our beliefs.

Rabbonim who head cities and congregations in Eretz Yisroel and abroad have been voicing disappointment and protest against the greatchilul Hashemthat has resulted from the Shas Party's decision to join the World Zionist Organization, noting the exultant response among Reform and Conservative figures to what they call Shas' "historical precedent."

Former Young Judaea Year Course director Keith Berman, who announced his resignation from the organization last month, has launched a new “year in Israel program” for teens Monday aimed at stirring up competition for long-term programs here and making such experiences more affordable to young Diaspora Jews.

Some questions: Is competition, choice, and change a good thing or are consumers now choosing between two of the same product?

If Aardvark Israel "only" brings young people to Israel but does so in potentially large numbers, does it matter or mean any less that it lacks the backing and framework of Hadassah, Young Judaea, or another established parent organization?

Is it more important to "save" Young Judaea or to develop new and alternative Israel program options? Is it one or the other? Is there a conflict of interest here?

The incoming director of Young Judaea's Year Course expressed "outrage" over learning his predecessor launched a rival gap year program merely one day after officially leaving the organization.

Young Judaea's Israel director, Dan Krakow, said everyone at his organization was "totally taken by surprise" by Aardvark's sudden launch.

While he emphasized Young Judaea "feels in no way threatened, harmed or disturbed," he added it would have been "inappropriate" if staff had indeed created a competing program while working for Young Judaea and using its resources.

Israel's state-funded Hebrew enrichment system for new immigrants may be reformed, following the recent release of a critical report which speaks of deep dissatisfaction with the system among students.

The Immigrant Absorption Ministry is looking to overhaul Hebrew language instruction program for new immigrants, following the publication last month of a report that shows the current system has failed most of those arriving in the country,The Jerusalem Posthas learned.

The leaders of the Jewish community in South Africa wrote Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu a desperate letter this week, pleading with him to prevent the cancellation of El Al Israel’s Tel Aviv-Johannesburg route, the only direct flight between Israel and South Africa.

The Jewish Agency for Israel has been engaged primarily in reaching out to Diaspora Jews, but now it is also seeking to connect with Israelis living abroad by way of the Internet, and the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey is joining that effort.

“Following consultations and lengthy consideration by Guma Aguiar and his family, I was asked to work to stop professional and financial proceedings regarding Guma Aguiar’s future ownership of the Betar Jerusalem Football Club and Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team.

This means Guma Aguiar will not be the owner, or the sponsor, of either Betar or Hapoel Jerusalem starting next season,” Aguiar’s lawyer, Eitan Gabai, said in a press statement Tuesday evening.

Yesterday's announcement by Guma Aguiar's attorney, Eitan Gabay, that the billionaire energy industrialist would be withdrawing his patronage from the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club and the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball club came as no surprise to the clubs' respective managements.

The Williamses, now settled in Washington, D.C., represent a growing number of newlyweds who found love with fellow travelers or people they met through Taglit-Birthright Israel, a free program that has sent some 215,000 18- to 26-year-olds to Israel from around the world.

A course in the history of Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union has been introduced in Israeli high schools, a spokesperson for the education ministry said on February 3.

The new course coincides with the 20th anniversary of the "Great Aliyah," the name for the 1-million-strong wave of Soviet Jews who moved to Israel during the disintegration of the world's first socialist state.

The Article argues for a new assessment of the significance of Israel’s Law of Return - that the Law of Return reflects not the sovereign prerogative of a state to control immigration, but the right of every Jew to settle in the Land of Israel.